


All the Flavors of the World

by Moonsheen



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Philosophy, Recovery, Robots, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 20:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7815676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-Dragons. Genji deals with the fallout of his confrontation with Hanzo.  Zenyatta discusses enlightenment with vending machines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Flavors of the World

The vending machine used a touch screen. It didn’t register an omnic’s fingers, but it answered voice commands.  A strip beneath the screen had a port that read cell phone and credit card information. Zenyatta tapped this and submitted his payment. The screen came alive in a wash of colors, offering a remarkably comprehensive selection of drinks, with many cute mascots associated with them.

“Choose your flavor,” said the machine. 

“An understanding of what makes up the sense of self,” said Zenyatta, with certainty. 

A pause.

“I’m sorry. We do not appear to have that in stock.”

“That is fine,” said Zenyatta, mildly. He liked the machines in Japan, they were friendly and quite creatively stocked. “Few do.”

“Choose your flavor.”

“Hm. I cannot claim to be an expert in such things. What would you suggest?” asked Zenyatta.   
  
Another pause.

“Choose your flavor,” repeated the machine, with an edge of annoyance in the playback.

Zenyatta laughed. “Humility is a sign of wisdom, but do not discount what is within yourself, my friend. Why don’t you choose your favorite? I will trust your judgment.”

No reply. This wasn’t wholly a surprise, but Zenyatta could afford to be patient. He sat back with his wrists resting calmly on his knees, and he was still in this position when the man who had been watching him in secret from the roofs finally dropped down beside him.

Zenyatta did not turn around. His ancillary sensors registered the soft steps and a living heartbeat. His beads rotated in welcome, a tiny replica of the celestial bodies that made up the very universe itself.

“If you are concerned I have taken offense, please release that chain from your heart,” said Zenyatta. “It never existed. I could never feel anything but gladness to see you, my dear student.” 

Genji crouched beside him. 

“I nearly wish you would,” he said, quietly, “I should not have left you here alone.”

“Not alone, my student,” said Zenyatta. He gestured. “As you see, I am in quite good company.”

Genji cocked his head at the row of machines in front of them. He accepted this after a moment, as one often accepted the strangeness of the world before them. Genji had always been very good at that. 

“Nevertheless, I am sorry to have left you so suddenly,” said Genji, lowering his head. “And for such selfish reasons. You worked so hard to teach me I could be free of the weight of the past, and yet, when faced by it again, I chased it. I cannot help but feel in that I have failed you, in some small and great way. I…”

He hesitated, overcome by uncertainty. When it was clear he could not continue, Zenyatta turned to face him, sending one of his beads in a wide revolution, so that Genji could be reminded of its light and harmony.

“The only test before you is the one you have set for yourself,” said Zenyatta. “One cannot overcome pain without first recognizing it. One cannot release their past without acknowledging it. One cannot know the world without having witnessed it in full.  That is why I am here now, is it not? Please speak freely. I will listen.”

“I went to see him,” said Genji, simply.

Silence. Long and careful. Zenyatta’s beads froze in their revolutions, suspended and waiting. 

It was not that Zenyatta needed time to process that statement -- he had processed it in less than a microsecond after Genji had given it. In truth, he had processed it a microsecond before Genji had admitted to it, having made the necessary connections before they had been stated outright, but Zenyatta understood that humans needed moments like this to feel long and significant. Omnic and humans minds carried equal potential for reasoning and analytical thought, but the human one operated far more slowly, being mapped onto an organic system of chemicals and nerves, rather than the easy shortcut of a core processor. It allowed humans to savor sensory input in a way both remarkable and bittersweet, but it meant haste unnerved and upset them. It cost Genji a great deal to admit to this, and Zenyatta did not want him to feel small for it. 

“I thought you might,” said Zenyatta, once he was sure the moment had been long enough.

The quiet human jerk of Genji’s head told him he had been right to give him that time.

“I fought with him,” he said, “as we had when we were younger.”

Here, Zenyatta allowed for no pause, and Genji did not ask for one. “I take it the outcome was not the same.”

“It was easy,” said Genji, in just one breath. Here, the human mind picked up speed, as it often did in the heat of emotion. Genji’s vents and lights flashed in acknowledgment to this shift in his functions. “I did not expect it to be so easy! He was a genius in our family in all ways, but I overcame him in minutes. My dragon was stronger than his. I brought him to his knees. I had my blade at his throat--”

“And?” asked Zenyatta, truly curious as to the outcome. There were many possibilities, and none of them certain. 

“... I let him go,” said Genji, “and I forgave him.”

“Ah,” said Zenyatta. Possibility folded into that one certainty, and Zenyatta folded his own hands in his lap. He pulled his beads back. They settled about his shoulders. “I take it this outcome is something of a surprise to you?”

“Yes,” admitted Genji, though it so clearly pained him to do so. “I knew I could defeat him. I surpassed him in strength a long time ago, but to do it for a reason beyond personal pride or revenge… I hadn’t been so sure that I could. You have always told me that we must acknowledge our pain and our past before we can release it, and I thought, perhaps, in this way I might overcome it.”

“A difficult test of self,” said Zenyatta, “and one of your own choosing.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot tell you whether or not you have passed it,” admitted Zenyatta, “for I am not the administrator of it.”

A slight lowering of Genji’s shoulders. “Yes.”

“But you can tell me: when you released your brother, how did you feel?”

Genji thought about it. He did not think about it terribly long.

“Light,” he said. “I felt very light.”

Zenyatta could not smile. He settled for placing a hand on his student’s shoulder instead, to show him the warmth he felt in that moment. From the answering hum of his cybernetics and the beating of his human heart, Zenyatta knew this was understood.

“Then, my student,” said Zenyatta, “I have no answers you do not already know. Thank you for confiding in me. I hope it sets your heart and mind at ease.”

This moment might have continued for some time, but they were interrupted by a sudden beep and clank. Genji snapped to attention with a hand on his sword hilt. Zenyatta leaned over to check on the vending machine.

A cherry cola sat in the dispenser.

“And thank  _ you _ , my friend,” said Zenyatta, in delight, for the world was full of so many strange and wonderful things, and he had yet experienced so little of it. “An excellent choice, indeed!”  

 

**Author's Note:**

> zenyatta you can't even drink that.


End file.
